Flashback: Reid and Obama opposed raising debt ceiling in 2006

President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have done everything short of threatening to shoot a puppy on live TV to cajole Republicans into raising the debt limit so Democrats can spend waste more of our hard-earned money.

But history shows that both men were adamantly opposed to raising the debt ceiling in 2006.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Of course, that was in 2006. The only difference between now and then, of course, is that we had a Republican president…

Naturally, Obama tried to backtrack from those comments back in 2011.

“I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a…President. When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, ‘You know what? We– we can’t play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States.’ And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I’m the first one to acknowledge it,” he said.

Be sure to check out our Headlines page to see what else our contributors are covering and make sure to listen to “Grit and Grace” every Thursday from 6-8 p.m. Pacific Time on Blog Talk Radio, where you can hear Joe discuss current events.

You can also hear Joe every Wednesday from 6-7 p.m. Pacific Time on Misguided Children radio.